The Pensive Bull: De Questio

I think I should start my own advice column. I don’t know how you call it when it appears in a blog though. But an advice corner nonetheless. Someone asks you a question about life then you write him back with lines so magical they can raise the country’s GNP. Usually, advice column subscribers would write about problems so heavily inane they get thrown off their career path solving them. Before they grab a rope for their necks, they write you asking for a piece of advice as a last resort. You feign concern. You give your 60 cents worth of advice. You write back in an attempt to brighten up somebody’s dark life with a tinged of tender loving care. Then you smile back having thought that you have them constrained from committing suicide using only the power of saccharine words, no matter how trite, yet circumspect. As if.

December 8, 2006. Lunch break at The Patio, PBCOM Tower. I’m not sure where and when I’m finishing this blog. It’s time to rant.

Friends surround me. They color my life. But sometimes they can color your life with the wrong hue. Blue mixed with black. Or menstrual red and puss yellow. Unintentenionally. Lately, some pasaway unknowingly just did so. It’s not like I’m complaining. Understandably, friends, like anything that you have, do not usually come with sunshine as traditionally thought. They can be chili red hot annoyingly spicy (sic, grammar escapes me) or simply diabetically (sic, I said I’m grammatically indisposed) honeyed.

Weeks ago, Rollo was telling me how he has been turned into a conveyor belt of some friends’ emotional baggage. Friends texting him in the middle of the night needing solace from their emotional plight, commonly in terms of relationships (failed or yet to fail), problems involving career (failed or yet to fail), imagined dilemma, or maybe GMA (the president). This happens when he was about to play hide and seek with the lambs in dreamland. He turns them down and he gets emotionally blackmailed. But most of the time friends simply have the good intention to ask for company in hanging out at the bars, movies, malling, cruising, and all other bonding activities. That’s kind of lovely and dear. Well, not most of the time. By the age of thirty, we get to have those moments when we all just want our space and respite in front of a playing DVD or some time to complete a yarn work on the Last Supper. Not to mention times when we don’t want anybody to know our “whereabouts”.

I get my fair share of Rollo’s dilemma. Once, a friend called me for an advice. Nope, not just an advice. Say company. Over beer. Sounds fun but knowing that this is all about some emotional distress, the discussion of which will certainly take the whole stretch of the night, I suddenly felt the aches of old age. I told the friend that I would be at work tonight. Yes, ‘till maybe 1 AM. The next day, my roster of friends came to less one.

For two weeks now, another friend is in the quagmire of relationships. I was solicitous enough to send my sincere comfort via SMS. I know how it felt having a troubled relationship. That's one I can sincerely sympathize. So last weekend, I texted the friend inquiring as to how he was holding on to dear life. He pretended he was his nephew with this response, “Nasa Arlington na po si Tito. Di na nya kayang mabuhay pang wala si…”

I know that wasn’t true. But for a millisecond I believed it to be true. Instead of being alarmed, I felt offended. This gal is such a good friend of mine, but rattling me with such lines just doesn’t seem to slide well with me. I think my readers know what I mean.

So I switched to bully mode. I texted the “nephew” back that it’s a good thing his “uncle’s” dead. None of my friend is a weakling. He texted back that the burial will be on the coming Sunday. I replied, “Drop by Bed in Malate on your way to your grave. Let’s have one bottle for the road.”

A week prior to that, another good friend of mine wanted company. This time I was really at work till late nights. So instead, I kept him company via text. He wanted to talk about his conquest (that was how he put it), which to others could be understood as achievement. I wasn’t so serious about everything he was discussing then and I was, admittedly, off tuned for joking about everything he was raving not knowing that the dame was already drunk. The next time I received a text response, he was threatening to throw me a bottle of beer. Thank the gods; between us did only Globe Telecoms bridge a vast distance.

I’m not known to conceal the characters in my blog but a clue is always available. They’re both Chinese. There.

Based on the foregoing instances, one can simply picture how I would empathize with my advice column subscribers. If you could call mine empathy. But definitely an advice column. Prepare for heart wrenching insults, unbridled bad jokes, uncalled-for laughter. As reaction to my taunging reply, you may A), B) go violent (at a distance), or C) you can finish off your cuticle between you teeth. But don't tell me I didn't warn you.

Question! (I just have to raise one in order to synch this entry with my title)

Have you watched Casino Royale? Did you see James Bond rise from that beach like a ripped Aquaman? Did you see him being licked by Ms. Shusmita Sen? How bout that morning after bed scene with that tramp? And yes! How do you like him screaming “Yes! Yes! To the right! To the right!” Did we have the same feeling? Did you like what you saw? Huh? Huh?

Now that’s a plenty of questions to justify my title.